7/12/16
Audio Conferencing: Toll-free #: 1-800-893-8850
Participant PIN: 8244236
MINUTES
UAF STAFF COUNCIL MEETING #209
Wednesday, September 15, 2010
8:45-11:00 a.m.
Wood Center Carol Brown Ballroom
1. CALL TO ORDER AND ROLL CALL
PRESENT
EXCUSED ABSENCE
Elizabeth Guthier
Susan Baird
Ashley Munro
Sara Spurlin
Dawn Dearinger
Jodi Baxter
Sharon Corbett
Ben Tucker
Gary Newman
Robert Mackey
Jennifer Elhard
Mary Sue Dates
Heather Leavengood
Katrina Paul
Richard Machida
Deb Hao
Carol Shafford
Kayt Sunwood
Britton Anderson
Walker Wheeler
Travis Brinzow
Ann Hovde
Amy Bristor
Dayna Mackey
Forrest Kuiper
Jon Dehn, President, Faculty Senate
Brian Rogers, UAF Chancellor
ABSENT
Pips Veazey
Sara Battiest
Jennifer Stutesman
Chris Van Dyck
Brad Havel
Bryan Uher
Kathy Peterson
OFFICERS PRESENT
Maria Russell, President, Staff Council
Martin Klein, Past President, Staff Council
Margo Griffith, Vice President, Staff Council
Nicole Carvajal, President, ASUAF
GUESTS
Pat Pitney, VC for Administrative Services
Beth Behner, Chief Human Resources Officer
Jenny Grieve, Labor Relations Legal Assistant
1
7/12/16
A. Adopt Staff Council Agenda #209, Wednesday, September 15, 2010
Agenda adopted as amended.
B. Approve Staff Council Minutes #207, Tuesday, 18 May, 2010
Minutes approved as amended.
1. PUBLIC COMMENT
Naomi Horne is a development officer at the university. When she first started working here, she
took a position as a student assistant with Chancellor Marshall Lind. Lois and Marshall took
great care of their students in their office. Lois would bring left over’s and ask how her sick
mother was doing when she was ill. At one point, Marshall asked Naomi if she was going to be
able to afford school the next year due to tuition increases. Naomi told him that she would be ok
and that she could get a second part time job. Naomi asked Chancellor Lind to do something to
help the students with financial struggles of being a student. Many months later he did.
Chancellor Lind started the Chancellor's Annual Giving Scholarship initiative. As a result of this
initiative there were 12 new endowments that still exist today. Now as staff and with the
expansion of the university the Chancellor cannot tap on everyone’s shoulders. As the university
grows the communications and sophisticated mechanisms we use have to grow too. To Naomi
that is what the union is here to do. Fill that need. The vote is coming up, and a lot of
information going around. Naomi encourages everyone to find their voice and be involved.
Naomi and the organizing committee are available to answer any questions you might have. You
can contact Naomi at X6464 with further questions.
2. OFFICER REPORTS (attachment 209/1)
A. Maria Russell, President, Staff Council
Thank you to Council members who attended the 2010 convocation. A survey was sent out last
June by Scott McCrea to see what concerns needed to be addressed at convocation. All results
were confidential. Thanks for giving your input. The 2010 convocation is online. Please take the
opportunity to watch it. At convocation the Chancellor touched on the administrative review
process. Maria has received some phone calls from staff about what that exactly entails. Maria
will be sitting on the support and administrative committee as the representative for Council.
This committee is taking inventory of what assets the university has. These assets will include
staff and staff classifications. Pat Pitney will be speaking later in the meeting and will address
this issue more thoroughly. At any time you can go to Administrative Services website and
evaluate the status of the committee process.
Last June there was a copyright infringement case. A staff member was told that if they did not
deal with the violation immediately they would be removed from employment. Alarmed by this
process the employee notified governance groups. Staff Alliance and the Administrative
committee asked OIT to re-evaluate their policies. The newly revised policy will be sent to the
Staff Affairs committee.
2
Thank you to everyone who showed up at the statewide Fisher review. It was anonymously
agreed at the System Governance level that the consultants and all participants were not prepared.
There is a short turn around and there should be results within the month.
The Maxamus group came this summer to evaluate the electronic effort and certification process.
That would coincide with the electronic timesheets process. The Maxamus group gave a
presentation and looked at the federal side of grant auditing and the different liabilities they have
now. Their closeout session is meeting next week. It is open to the public so ask Maria for more
information.
At the last Staff Alliance retreat there were concerns about staff personnel records. Staff Alliance
wants to know what exactly goes into them, who have rights to them, and what employee rights
to them are. It was a shoot off of the RIAA incidence in June. The staff member’s personnel file
was cc’d to everyone involved. Staff Alliance put in a request to Human Resources for answers
to these questions. A response is still pending.
The UAF FY12 budget is going to be a base line. The governor this year is request three budgets
from UAF. There will a base line budget which is a budget similar to last years but with a salary
increase. It’s complicated because staff will not have a placeholder in the budget because of
union status. Once the vote has been determined staff increases can be placed into the budget.
The first budget is called the hold the line budget. The second budget is called base line budget
which will add programs that UAF thinks are meeting public needs. UAF will be required to
justify all new programs to the Governor. The third one is a separate budget for new initiatives.
This would include things that have not been budgeted previously. The governor has asked all
agencies to prepare their budgets this way this year.
Skill soft update, there is a possibility to design two Skill soft classes to meet training needs.
Maria will pass the information to Staff Affairs for further input.
The Life Sciences building is still a priority. There will be a brown bag lunch coordinated by
Advocacy committee highlighting the benefits of the building. It will be voted on in November
under the General Obligation bond. The Life Sciences building will free up space and
consolidate the biology courses. It will also free up space for departments and faculty on lower
campus. It will increase research capacity which will increase research scholars and in turn
provide more funding for departments. The building will benefit staff with future indirect
financial recovery.
Maria highlighted a comment President Gamble had said about staff. He said, “Staff really create
the environment, everyone fills a roll in the environment, but as a University they need to take
care of the environment, that’s what most important to him as a president.” He followed up the
statement by talking about students and how they really want value in education and how we as
staff should look out for them. We are here for those students, and Gamble commends staff for
creating a dynamic environment for them. Maria would like to extend this further by noting that
with her recent experience in helping a student register, it is quite a process. The staff that work
in student support services make everything work smoothly even with the regulation changes.
B. Margo Griffith, Vice-President, Staff Council
Margo further emphasizes that President Gamble does have an open door policy for staff. Staff
need to highlight efficiencies and accomplishments when budget reporting. On August 29,
Margo and Maria met with the Chancellor. This year there will be an extended period of reduced
3
7/12/16
activity rather than a soft closure. It will be the three days before the hard closure December 2022 and the week following the hard closure January 3-7 will have reduced staffing. It will be up
to the departments to keep the doors open or not. An official memo will come from Human
Resources. Carol noted that administration could have been timelier with the announcement.
Maria agrees and Council has expressed the concern and importance of this since June to the
Chancellor.
This summer Maria was notified that a rural campus had written the closure dates into their staff
contracts. The Chancellor was not aware of this. It is however, to the discretion of the directors.
Heather asked if “reduced activity” is a new term soft closure. Maria isn’t sure. But there should
not be any forced closures. Kayt asked if it was up to the department to be closed the whole time.
Maria noted that the Chancellor didn’t think that it would be a concern. Heather asked for more
details. Juella commented that leaving the decisions to the departments is scary. Budget cuts and
layoffs were left to the departments over the summer and people lost their jobs. Juella requests
that there should be a statement saying that you will not be forced to take leave of any kind, it
would seem less severe. Staff should distribute the information about the closure and make sure
that the information gets out. Election ballots will be mailed out Oct 19 elections closed by
November 5. There are some updates on the Labor Relations website and the SAA video is out
with a union Q&A.
Juella commented about the RIAA case. This is a lot of liability on staff. Juella thinks that OIT
hasn’t done enough to make staff aware of this liability. Making sure you erase your Mac address
is way beyond staff. Maria agreed, however, there is a new program that will wipe that kind of
information from older computers. A process and system is in the works. Juella noted that staff
may receive this strong language warning and have no idea what it means. There should be a
resource for this liability.
On June 4 the RIAA policy was revised and resubmitted on June 16. Maria is disseminating a
copy to Staff Affairs for review. Staff should be informed about what copyright infringement and
how copyright infringement can happen.
Walker mentioned that the network security officer is contacted by the external organization that
owns the rights to the material being infringed on. It’s not an active policing effort. Gary
suggested that it might be a good Tech Fest topic to address. Britton said he would mention it to
the Tech Fest committee.
3. GOVERNANCE REPORTS (attachment 209/2)
A. Jon Dehn, President, Faculty Senate
No report at this time.
B. Nicole Carvajal, President, ASUAF
ASUAF reports that there is a new sustainability coordinator, Michele Hebert. ASUAF is
acquiring 100-200 level textbooks to house and utilize in the student offices. Tuition increases
this year is still an issue. ASUAF is flying out three students that will testify at the next Board of
Regents meeting. Internally, there were a smashing seven senate seats filled. Juella inquired
4
about the Graduate committee. There is a Graduate committee but they are not officially part of
ASUAF. Graduates students are more than welcome to sit on the senate.
Gary asked if more than just students can sit on the R.I.S.E. board. The R.I.S.E. board is
currently students only the fee is paid for by students at this time. There are open senator seats
that still need to be filled, so send them my way if they show any interest.
6. GUEST(S)
A. Brian Rogers, UAF Chancellor (not available)
No report at this time.
B. Becky Phillips, UAF Bookstore Manager
No report at this time.
C. Beth Behner, Chief Human Resources Officer
Beth came to the meeting today to answer any questions Council may have about the unionization
process. She introduced Jenny Grieve who is also very involved with the union process. Jenny is
the person to talk to when staff have particular questions. Jenny mentioned that September 21 is
deadline for eligibility. Jenny requests all eligible employees check their mailing address is
correct. That is the address that will be used to distribute the ballots on September 28 at the latest.
The roster will be submitted to ALRA on October 5. Ballots will be mailed out October 19. The
ballots must be received by ALRA November 5 at 4:30 pm. In order to be tallied. The tally will
take place on November 8.
Beth wanted to highlight that there was some questions that came up about the ballot. There are
no special provisions for elections. At the last conference call between ALRA, ASEA and Labor
Relations ASEA is indentifying another group of people who will not be under the union group.
There are 50-60 people that ASEA feels that they should be listed under the roster.
Gary asked if the 350-360 people are aware that they are involved in the review process. Beth
said no that they would be unaware unless the union has approached them. If anyone feels they
should be in unit but not listed should call the agency and get a ballot and to be submitted to the
roster. Ballots will be counted by ALRA. By October 25 the rosters will be posted in
departments for review.
C. Pat Pitney
Pat came today to sit in place for Chancellor Rogers. UAF has successful trudged through the
pullback. It was noticeable and in some cases an unpleasant process. We are now however in a
stable fiscal condition across the board. Structural holes such as KUAC and Athletics are now on
a stable footing. In the future, so we are not tasked with across the board cuts two task forces
have been established. The Administrative and Support Review Task Force and the Academic
and Research Review Task Force both are underway to evaluate and mainstream processes across
this system. The intention under the Administrative and Support Review Task Force is to
inventory all administrative and support type positions at the University.
5
7/12/16
Pat is excited to see what the capacity is within the institution. In the long term, everyone will
have a sense of how the administrative and supportive costs lie. Overtime criteria will be created
to prioritize what the most important. The first step is to determine how many are there. There
are 1300 staff members’ to date.
Juella asked what function of administrative they are referring to. Pat noted that it covers all
functions of administration from generalist to directors. Jennifer Elhard asked if there was a
place to get more information. It would be on the Administrative Services webpage. The link is
also available on the President’s report.
Gary asked if this is an outgrowth of other reports that have come out in the past. The task forces
are certainly a response to past reports. Kayt asked if the information will be available when
complete. The information will be available online when the data is together.
Juella asked Pat about the pull back. When you are looking at places to save money you have lots
of tools available to you to find efficiencies and use funds from unfilled positions. What would
you guess would be the percentage of layoffs or non-retentions of staff? The majority of the
funding filled was from unfilled positions. The largest was reducing non personal services
expenditures, there were five layoffs associated with pull back. This information is all available
on the UAF Human Resources or Administrative Services website.
BREAK
7.
COMMITTEE REPORTS (attachment 209/3)
A.
Staff Affairs, Heather Leavengood
The new chairs of Staff Affairs are Brad Havel and Mary Sue Dates. The committee plans to
meeting later this month.
B.
Rural Affairs, Susan Baird
The committee has not met.
C.
Elections, Membership, and Rules, Katrina Paul
The committee has not met. September 28, 2010 is the next meeting.
D.
Advocacy Committee, Ashley Munro
The committee has a new chair Jodi Baxter. Staff tours are still in the works this year. Council
will be highlighting current research on campus.
8.
EXTERNAL COMMITTEE REPORTS (attachment 209/4)
A.
Master Planning Committee (MPC), Gary Newman
Please see attached report.
6
B.
Subcommittee on Parking and Circulation Committee (SCP), Katrina Paul
Committee is dormant. Martin noted that there is a draft memo recommending that the Parking
Advisory committee merge with the Parking and Circulation and Parking committee.
C.
Chancellor’s Diversity Action Committee (CDAC), Juella Sparks
CDAC met September 10, 2010. It was an informational meeting due to lack of quorum. There
was brief discussion about reducing the membership committee to 12 instead of 17. Juella will
let us know more as discussion develops.
D.
Governance Coordinating Committee (GCC), Maria Russell
The committee has not met.
E.
Technology Advisory Board Committee (TAB), Brad Havel
The committee has not met.
F.
Chancellor’s Planning and Budget Committee, Chris Van Dyck
The committee has not met.
G.
Student Recreation Center Board (SRCB), Carol Shafford
The committee has not met.
H.
Bunnell House Advisory Committee, Walker Wheeler and Heather Leavengood
The committee has not met.
I.
Work, Life, Balance Committee, Walker Wheeler and Heather Leavengood
Heather noted that WLB met once over the summer, but there was nothing significant to report.
J.
Staff Healthcare Committee, Ashley Munro and Maria Russell
Maria reported the committee met earlier this week. The WIN report was postponed. The
committee discussed the 300 thousand dollar incentives options for staff. The chosen incentive
options will be reported back to the Joint Health Care committee.
K.
Intercollegiate Athletic Council, Pips Veazey and Heather Leavengood
The committee has not met. Forrest Karr is the new chair of the committee.
L.
Chancellor’s Advisory Committee for the Naming of Campus Facilities, Maria Russell
The committee has not met.
M. Accreditation Steering Committee, Kayt Sunwood
7
7/12/16
Kayt noted that the steering committee has been a good deal of work.
N.
Meritorious Award Committee, Maria Russell
The committee has not met.
9.
DISCUSSION ITEMS
A.
Union Update
See Beth Behner’s report.
ACTION
10. NEW BUSINESS
A.
External Committee Assignments
Staff Alliance is forming a new committee for performance evaluations. There are a handful of
us that reviewed it; however, Alliance would like a subcommittee that would allow a more
thorough evaluation of the performance evaluation form and to give input directly to the original
committee. If anyone is interested please let Maria know. Katrina Paul and Mary Sue Dates
volunteered to be on the committee.
The Staff Health Care committee would like a review of current members on the committee.
There needs to be one member from Alliance and one Council representative and one alternate.
Carol Shafford and Richard Machida volunteered to sit on the committee. Ashley agreed to
remain on as an alternate.
B.
Draft Motion to approve the 2010-2011 Staff Council Meeting Calendar (attachment 209/5)
2010-2011 Staff Council Meeting Calendar is approved as presented.
C.
Draft Motion to create annual ad hoc Staff Calendar Committee (attachment 209/6)
The 2011 Staff Calendar committee motion has been approved as proposed.
11. ROUND TABLE DISCUSSION
Round table discussion is off the record.
12. ADJOURN
8